A CENTENARIAN celebrated her landmark birthday in style, with an open top tour of the village where she has lived for the past 51 years.

Hilda Minto was collected at her doorstep by limousine to be taken for a 100th birthday party at the nearby Lanchester Social Club on Saturday (October 12).

But rather than make the short drive down Newbiggin Lane, the open top Bentley Continental made a tour of Lanchester before dropping Mrs Minto at the club.

She went on to enjoy an afternoon buffet celebration joined by about 60 relatives and family friends.

Son Billy, one of Hilda’s seven children, said his mother was delighted to see so many familiar faces, including all her 16 grand children and great-grandchildren.

“She was over the moon. She had cousins there with their families who she had not seen for 20 - 25 years, as well as every family member and friends.”

Mr Minto said his mother often said her secret to long-life was: “Don’t drink, don’t smoke and work hard all of your life”, a maxim she lived up to, even on her big birthday milestone on Saturday.

She was born in the early months of the First World War, not far from Lanchester, in the tiny rural hamlet of Bargate, the son of miner Mark Witton and his wife Doris.

During the Second World War she worked as part of the female ‘Land Army’ on a local farm.

She later moved to Malton, at the east end of Lanchester, where she met and married her late husband Billy, who worked at the local colliery.

But since 1963 she has lived in the same house in Alderdene, Lanchester, where youngest daughter Doris now provides companionship and care.